Hello, everyone. I'm 29 years old and I'm from Guatemala. My biggest dream in life is to play tennis professionally. This is something that requires four things: youth (which I don't have much left), athletic condition and talent (which I have some and I'm training hard every night to gain more), heart (which I have in excess) and a lot of money (which I currently don't have).

Given my background and set of skills, I consider there are only two ways in which I will be able to gather enough money while I'm still young enough to enjoy a few years of professional tennis... and both are sort of a longshot:

1. Writing a publishable novel that sells decently.
2. Trying success for the nth time playing online mtts.

So I shall be tackling both of this ways simultaneously, hoping one of them works out somehow. This thread will be focusing mainly on that second way, but if anyone wants to ask me about my novel writing, I will be more than happy to answer.


MOTIVATION

So, at this point in my life, this dream of mine should be considered more of a fantasy (I'm waaay too old to start playing tennis professionally, I know that). Yet, I still feel this fire in my belly each time I'm on the tennis court or watching a tennis tournament on tv.

However, my biggest reason for giving this a serious go is that, a few months ago, the girl who made me discover what being in love truly was, ended up breaking my heart in the cruelest way possible. Now I'm broken hearted, waking up sad every day, and the only thing that makes sense to me now is looking for a way in which I can make my dreams come true. I may not be able to spend the rest of my life with the girl I wanted to, but I swear I will try my best to live the life I dream about... even if just for a few years.

POKER BACKGROUND

I started playing online back in 2009. I used to be very impressed with myself when I managed to turn those 80 cents I won in a freeroll into $2k in less than 2 months (and then had to do it all over again in 2010 after busting that original bankroll). I also came very close to qualifying to the PCA (or was it CPA) in 2011 or 2012.

Then in 2013 I discovered SNGs and that's when I stopped making any sort of profit online (with the exception of 2015, when I made a mini comeback to mtts). These past two years I've been trying Spins to no success (going broke like 5 times along the way I think)... so now I'm making my final comeback to MTTS.

Almost all the mtt formats with which I was able to enjoy some success are now gone: freezeouts, fpp and cash megapaths (my most profitable games ever), 1R1A, 2R1A, Omania, 3x and 2x rebuys. But these past few weeks I started trying out the Bigs, Hots and some of the mini majors... they are not as exciting as they used to be, but they seem profitable.


CONSTRAINS
I have a 9 to 5 job, after which I train tennis/conditioning for about 3 hours. This means the only hours in which I can play are my work hours (which is cool, because I have a lot of free time in my job) and weekends.

My job pays me around $1300 a month. I can live only spending around $400 per month, the rest goes into my savings account.

I will start only with a $150 bankroll in order to force myself to be disciplined with my money. But I may revise this if it starts feeling like I'm on a really short leash.

METHODOLOGY

At first, I will begin focusing my attention on the micros (bigs and hots mostly), and also on the sats for some of the low and medium bigs. On Sundays, I will also try some sats for some of the mini majors and such.

Once I have built a 5k bankroll, I will also start playing the $7.50 steps to try qualifying for the Sunday million each week.

Will try updating this thread each week. Wish me luck!!!

I like your story OP. Send me a PM. I am willing to give you some coaching in the form of feedback of hands you send me for free.

Oh, you must be like me then: a sucker for sad stories.

Thanks for the offer Sam, that's very nice indeed. When I find some hands or situations that particularly bother me, I will make sure to consult with you.

The main thing I need help right now, though, is knowing which hands to open between the 2nd and 3rd hour of the Bigs, but only someone familiar with stars level jumps could help me with that (not sure if you play at stars). The way they have changed these blind jumps, well, my usual nit ways of accumulating a decent quantity of chips during the first two hours of play and then waiting for the first bubble to pop so I can turn the aggressiveness back on just don't work anymore. The last half hour or so before the bubble bursts feels like a turbo or hyper turbo now, and that means opening more hands earlier is a must (I figure).

subbed and gl!

Gl man! Love the novel idea, have you written any stories before?

gl with the novel OP

Mutual subs! Pretty cool haha

Thank you!

Yeah, like 10 years ago I used to write a lot (never got to complete a novel though, just some short stories). then university got serious and I discovered onlline poker, so I stopped writing almost entirely. But now this experience of falling in love for the first time, and also getting my heart torn apart, is making me rediscover that hunger for writing (so typical, I know). I also rediscovered one of my fav tv shows, House MD, and that show always made me feel like writing.

Just with the novel? haha, thanks anyway!

Okay guys, so I'm discovering that my biggest obstacle so far is sticking to the specific set of tournaments I have already selected to play each work day. Those days in which I bust early from all of them, I need to keep myself from diverting from my plan, by not playing any unexpected spins or 180s or even cash games. Here is the list of tournaments I intend on playing on workdays (free days, usually weekends, is another story):

$3.30 Sat for Omania $27 - 08:36 MT
$1.10 Sat for Bounty Builder $11 - 09:02 MT
Bounty Builder $2.20 - 09:30 MT
$2.20 Sat for the Big $22 - 09:31 MT
The Big $3.30 - 10:00 MT
$1.10 Sat for the Big $11 - 10:31 MT
$1.10 Sat for the Hot $11 - 10:49 MT
The Hot $2.20 - 12:15 MT

Those are all the mtts I've planed to play on a daily basis until I improve my bankroll. When I reach $500 or so, I'm planing to start playing the Big 7.70, the Hot 5.50 and (which start quite early, and that's great for me), and sats for the Big, Hot and Omania $55. But that's the second phase of my challenge.

Also, there's a small caveat. Those days in which circumstances won't let me stick to my regular schedule, I'm planing to grind either 180s ($2.50 or maybe $3.50 rebuys) or 18 ($3.30)... still haven't decided, but so far I'm leaning towards the later ones.

Well, the first week of my challenge happened to be unusually charged with work (I'm a seismologist, and we had two 6+ magnitude earthquakes here in Guatemala in less than two weeks), so I didn't have much time to play. My deepest run in a large field MTT was finishing 35 or so in the Big $4.

Also, next Sunday I leave to Santiago de Chile for 1 month because of work related stuff, so I doubt I will be able to play much then. Because of this, I'm once again playing Spins (and getting positive results BTW), and will return to MTTs once my situation returns to its normal state.

So, for the next month or so, I once again will be grinding both Spins, 18 man SNGs and, maybe, 180s. Though maybe I will be able to grind MTTs this friday and saturday.